Foo Fighters’ ‘However Right here We Are’ is heavy, in each sense of the phrase : NPR

Foo Fighters carry out in Gilford, N.H. on Could 24. The band’s eleventh studio album, However Right here We Are, is out now.

Scarlet Web page/Courtesy of the artist

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Scarlet Web page/Courtesy of the artist

Foo Fighters carry out in Gilford, N.H. on Could 24. The band’s eleventh studio album, However Right here We Are, is out now.

Scarlet Web page/Courtesy of the artist

Foo Fighters shaped within the aftermath of tragedy, as Kurt Cobain‘s 1994 suicide left Dave Grohl reeling and looking for a voice. The band’s self-titled 1995 debut discovered the drummer and newly minted frontman reinvigorated by grief, whereas 1997’s The Color and the Form doubled as a rousingly hooky remedy session within the aftermath of his divorce. Taken collectively, the 2 data doc Grohl’s seek for catharsis and steadiness amid painful destabilization, they usually set the tone for a fruitful profession that culminated in Foo Fighters’ 2021 induction within the Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame.

Now, 28 years after Foo Fighters’ debut, the band has launched its eleventh album, However Right here We Are — and as soon as once more discovered itself in mourning. Drummer Taylor Hawkins died unexpectedly in March 2022, leaving the band’s future momentarily unsure; then, in August of the identical yr, Grohl misplaced his mom, Virginia. The lyrics to Grohl’s new songs recommend that she’s a good better presence — or, extra to the purpose, absence — on the album than Hawkins. Grohl’s phrases on However Right here We Are ache with loss, at the same time as they explode in full-bore rock mayhem, and that loss extends past the deaths of family members: They’re songs concerning the lack of reminiscence, the lack of consolation, the lack of the previous, the lack of dwelling. As soon as once more, plumbing the depths of anguish has led to a number of the most significant music of his profession.

It is value stopping right here to push again towards the pernicious fantasy of artwork stemming solely from nice distress, and to ponder how a lot of Grohl’s greatest work can also be an extension of the deep neighborhood that is shaped round him — which has, lately, prolonged to the occasional vocal contribution from his daughter Violet. Nevertheless it’s onerous to overlook, and it might be malpractice to not level out, the constant ferocity and deal with show in However Right here We Are. Grohl clearly understands that we honor departed family members by constructing new joys we want they have been round to share.

In that manner, However Right here We Are genuinely shines as a tribute to Hawkins. Although Foo Fighters’ drummer will likely be changed on tour by Josh Freese, Grohl returns to the equipment all through the brand new report, and he brings uncooked, immediately identifiable depth to its 10 tracks. “Rescued” and “Beneath You” open However Right here We Are with singles that appear to have emerged instantly from an alternate-universe greatest-hits package deal — they’re hard-driving profession highlights that sound each timeless and totally of the current — whereas “Nothing At All” and the title monitor ramp up these songs’ aggression with choruses that kick up a number of the best frenzies of Foo Fighters’ profession.

After all, for this band, riffs and reflection aren’t mutually unique. For all its hard-driving abandon, “Beneath You” faucets right into a deep effectively of sentiment — “Somebody mentioned I will by no means see your face once more / A part of me simply cannot imagine it is true / Footage of us share sharing songs and cigarettes / That is how I will at all times image you” — because it contemplates grief as each an important weight and a course of. Elsewhere, absences abound from each angle: “I been listening to voices / None of them are you,” Grohl sings in “Listening to Voices,” whereas the 10-minute epic “The Instructor” finds him pleading, “Present me grieve, man / Present me say goodbye.” “Relaxation” closes However Right here We Are on a real tearjerker, as he pledges a reunion “within the heat Virginia solar” — a reference to each his fatherland and the girl who raised him. And “The Glass” makes clear the stakes of his sorrow, as Grohl sings, “I had a model of dwelling, and similar to that, I used to be left to stay with out it.”

Nonetheless, all of the discuss of dying that pervades However Right here We Are should not overshadow what a very formidable rock report it’s — so catchy and vibrant, so brimming with wild-eyed surprise. It is heavy, in each sense of the phrase, however make no mistake: It will nonetheless get caught in your head for days.